


Pocahontas

by Melodious329



Category: CW Network RPF, Kane (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-18
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:46:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melodious329/pseuds/Melodious329
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris as the noble savage and Steve as the beleaguered Englishman</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pocahontas

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I neither own nor know any of the real persons on whom these characters are based

Steven Carlson wasn’t on the first ship that took English settlers to the New World. Nor was he on the second or the third. He wasn’t a fighter, didn’t have any military experience. He was a thirty year old, unmarried school teacher when he boarded the ship that would forever change his life.

Steven was looking for a change, seeking new horizons. Victorian sensibilities had stifled him, had taken away whatever hope he had ever had in love and happiness. He wanted to escape English society even if he could never escape the lessons that had been drilled into his head. He wanted to be left alone with his books and his thoughts.

And so he sailed to the so-called New World and then continued inland, joining with other settlers who were hoping to build their own new lives.  
***************

Steven was sitting in his home in the New World. It was a nice home if basic in its amenities. Really though, what it didn’t have was more important than what it did. It didn’t have his mother coming to call on him, asking when he would take a wife. It wasn’t anywhere near English society with its constant social engagements and dull, pretentious society members. There was no one to judge him if he stayed inside and kept to himself.

That was not to say that no one was judging him. Even moving to the current farthest edge of the world couldn’t save him from that. He lived in a tiny town, held together by the wooden fence that surrounded them. Ostensibly the fence kept them safe, protected them from attack from Indian or wild animal, but it also kept them in. The people here had also escaped the pretentiousness of British society, but they had brought with them their own notions of what acceptable behavior was, of how a single man should act.

So far Steven had stayed mostly below the gossiping attentions of his neighbors. Steven worked hard in the community and chatted civilly with his neighbors. He educated their children and his gaze never lingered inappropriately on their flowering daughters. Of course, there were a couple of old women trying to match him with their daughter or granddaughter, but so far, no one thought it odd that he had come out to the middle of nowhere to be, for the most part, alone.

He was sitting in the one room of his home, at the desk that he had built himself, and really, the last thing that he would have expected in that moment, or in any moment, was for four men to come bursting through his door. The people here had always been conscientious about respecting his privacy so, at first, it was with anger that Steven stood. That anger was dampened by confusion, though, when he realized that the men were throwing something, someone to the ground. All Steven could see was tanned dirty skin and wild dark hair as the person struggled before falling in a heap to Steven’s floor.

“What is the meaning of this?” Steven exclaimed, indignation warring with curiosity in his voice so that it didn’t come out as commanding as he would have liked.

The thing, person on the ground was the only one to respond to his words, looking up to find the person who had spoken and it was then that Steven looked into the bluest eyes that he had ever seen. They were captivating. Every emotion was visible as it flitted across the expressive face, anger and fear and pain, honest and passionate as he panted hard through flared nostrils like a bull.

It was a long moment before Steven even managed to take anything else in, to realize that it was a boy, a youth of less than eighteen he was sure, his limbs still gangly with adolescence, an Indian boy wearing only a thin cloth over his crotch and leaving his chest bare. Steve didn’t even notice he was staring until the boy looked away, lurching at the men again who easily put him back down.

It wasn’t until then that his indignation came back as he took in the scene. What was going on that they were terrorizing this boy and what did any of it have to do with him?

“What’s going on?” he asked again, his eyes flitting between the men standing before him, some bloodied and breathing hard as well, and the boy on his hands and knees, shoulder-length brown hair falling across his face that was turned away, bony shoulders heaving.

But fortunately, this time, he got an answer. “He’s a Cherokee,” one of the men said, a tall man, with dark hair and eyes who had a twelve year old son that Steven taught.

Steven just barely managed not to roll his eyes in complete exasperation. He had no patience for stupid. He could clearly see that despite the boy’s eye-color, he was an Indian, most likely a Cherokee. Though Steven had nothing to do with raids or scouting parties, even he knew that their settlement had been getting into more and more conflicts with the Cherokees.

But he didn’t have to voice the question of why had the boy been forcibly dragged here. At that point one of the men spoke up again, and really Steven should have known that he’d be there even if Steven hadn’t seen him at first. He was tall with dark blonde hair and had once been an officer in the British military. And that was the qualification necessary to be the recognized leader of their settlement. His name was David Boreanaz.

David sighed before answering, exasperated himself with his comrades apparently. “We’re going to ransom him to get back our own captives and the weapons they’ve stolen. We picked this one in particular, the favorite grandson of the chief.”

Steven looked again at the boy who had settled back on his knees though his hands were still on the floor as if poised to make a run for it. The boy was watching them defiantly. Steven had, in fact, heard of this child. The boy’s mother had been the favorite daughter of the chief and a white woman who had never gone back to the settlement she had been taken from. The boy’s mother had also married a half-white man.

The boy wasn’t royalty. He would never be chief, but it was said that his energy and his singing voice pleased the chief greatly.

Still Steven couldn’t help but think that it was a terrible plan. Both sides had ransomed captives before, for other captives, for food, for weapons. It was not a way to peace, seemingly only escalating the violence. And if they sent this particular boy back harmed in any way…

“What is he doing in my cabin?” Steven asked warily.

At that, David stepped forward, closer to intimidate Steven while completely ignoring the boy crouched on the floor. David had that too charming smile on his face, that smile that invited confidence but Steven knew that the man was capable of too much for the smile to be real. A strong hand reached out to clap his shoulder and Steven had to force himself not to shrug the friendly gesture off.

“Well, you see, Steven, we haven’t got anywhere else to put him and since you don’t have a wife sharing this little place with you…” David trailed off, giving Steven a knowing look. A look that said he knew Steven’s secrets and wouldn’t hesitate to use that knowledge to his advantage. It was a look Steven had seen before. “This way, we can say he enjoyed our hospitality. You can even teach the savage since you’ve always been so fascinated with them,” David sneered, disdainful of both Steven’s profession and Steven’s interest in the ‘savages’. And then he looked down at the defiant, crouching boy as if he were looking at a dog, as if he were contemplating kicking it just to hear it wail. “To that end, we should give the poor thing an English name, don’t you think? A good Christian name…like Christian.”

David looked too pleased with himself at that and the other men in his group seemed to agree on the suitability of the name. And then he was moving, gesturing for the other men to precede him out Steven’s door. It was a given that Steven would relent, would follow David’s lead. Steven had been fortunate in that his interactions with David had been minimal, but it seemed as if his luck had run out.

“Does he even speak English? Do you know what his name is?” Steven couldn’t help asking.

“There will be guards outside, if you need help, just yell,” David instructed, that patronizing smile back in place as if he cared about Steven and wasn’t completely disregarding Steven’s questions before closing the door behind him.

Irritated, Steven turned back toward the room. The boy was still crouched, looking like a wild animal, a cornered animal liable to chew off his own foot to escape. Hard, icy blue eyes tracked his movement as he edged closer, trying to seem neither frightened nor aggressive. But as he got closer, Steven could just make out the fear that was underneath the defiance in the boy’s eyes, and under that, pain. There was blood on the boy’s face, evidence that the boy had not been easy to subdue.

With a sigh, Steven moved back toward the door, turning his body to the side to open it since he didn’t want to have his back exposed to the boy. Outside there were indeed two men standing there on guard. The whole thing seemed absurd to him.

“Get me some water,” he ordered the nearest man. The man only turned toward him with speculative eyes, plainly about to protest when Steven spoke again. “Get me some water, or do you want to send the boy back to the Cherokee chief with blood on his face?”

That got the man resentfully moving and Steven waited at his own doorway, not speaking to the other guard who was not speaking to him and keeping half an eye on the boy that was watching the whole thing with intelligent eyes.

Steven took the pail of water when it was brought and went back inside, shutting the door without another word. Inside, he poured some of the water out into his washing basin and grabbed a clean cloth. Those he carried over and set on the floor an arm’s length away from the boy.

The boy’s expression had hardened at his approach, in preparation no doubt for some kind of rebellion. He glared at Steven and then said, “I won’t tell you anything.”

At the sound of words in English, Steven looked up from where he was wringing the water out of the cloth. “You speak English?” he asked though the answer was already apparent.

The boy apparently thought the question was stupid as well as one side of full lips pulled up in an almost-amused sneer.

It made Steven feel sheepish as he continued to wring out the water. It really shouldn’t have surprised him, he supposed. Many Indians had learned English to trade with the white people, and it was very likely one of the boy’s half-white parents had known the language.

“Good,” Steven said turning back to face the boy. “Then you’ll understand me when I say that I am going to clean the injuries on your face.”

The boy didn’t fight him on it, didn’t claim that he was uninjured, didn’t insist on cleaning himself. He seemed innocent then, though Steven wouldn’t usually apply that term to teenage boys no matter where from. Maybe innocence wasn’t exactly the word that Steven was looking for. The boy had a purity of spirit, as if he were determined to follow his own path in this world no matter where it led.

The boy also seemed vulnerable as he waited for the cloth to make contact with his wound. He wore that look that children have when they know that it’s going to hurt but they trust you anyway. Steven did not deserve that trust though he tried to be as gentle as possible as he dabbed at the cut on the boy’s cheek.

Though their faces were close together, the wide blue eyes studiously did not meet Steven’s own, and Steven, for his part, tried not to touch the boy too much. He had to put his other hand on the side of the boy’s face though in order to hold him still.

But since he had to touch the boy, Steven then tried not to notice how soft the boy’s skin was, how warm and inviting. He tried not to look at the length of the boy’s eyelashes as the boy slowly blinked or the fullness of the boy’s lips as the boy dragged his tongue quickly over them.

Steven was not in denial. He was a homosexual and, by this point in his life, he knew that nothing that would change that fact, neither wishing nor hoping nor abstaining. He had accepted that he would never be accepted, had accepted illicit trysts as the closest that he would get to love.

But he scolded himself for lusting after this boy, this boy who probably didn’t even recognize the desire in his gaze, this boy who was far too full of life for his fire to be dampened by shame.

Sitting on his floor, holding a sharp cheekbone in his left hand, Steven finished dabbing at the cut. As he turned away to re-soak the cloth, he couldn’t help his left hand running through silky, lightly curling hair. It was then that he noticed the small braids throughout the boy’s hair, with turquoise beads at the bottom of each strand. Steven’s own blonde hair was long, but he kept it tied back. In that moment, Steven felt like their hair seemed to illustrate all the differences between them.

The boy was still staring at the opposite wall as Steven ran the cloth over his face one more time, still trying to be defiant even as he accepted the caretaking.

Steven licked his own lips, hesitating a moment before questioning the boy, not wanting to break the peace.

“What is your name?” Steven asked.

The sneer that was back on the boy’s lips was exactly why Steven had hesitated to speak. “Why do you ask? I have been given an English name.” The words were a growl.

It was common that Indians would be given English names as they interacted with English settlers, as missionaries would attempt to convert them, as the English would pit them against the French. And Steven hated that he had to work against all of that as he attempted to interact with a child.

Steven had no idea what he could say that would convince the boy that he was not just like all the others. Hell, he probably was like all of the others before him. “I want to know your name,” he finally said.

Apparently the boy couldn’t maintain his defensiveness in the face of Steven’s soft but determined inquiry as the sneer quickly dropped along with the boy’s blue eyes. “Cheasequah,” the boy answered.

“What?” The question immediately popped out of Steven’s mouth. He had not been able to understand what the boy had just uttered.

At the request, a little of the boy’s spunk came back and he looked thoroughly put out at having to repeat himself. “Cheasequah.”

The second time didn’t make the word any easier to comprehend and Steven was left having no idea how he would possibly be able to recreate the sound. Steven didn’t know what to say as the boy now looked at him expectantly. He couldn’t possibly call the boy Christian but he couldn’t use the boy’s real name either.

“Can I call you Chris?” he offered ultimately.

At first the boy seemed to recoil from Steven’s suggestion that he be called by something other than his actual name, but then he seemed to consider it. He was probably thinking about how close to his name it sounded as well as how English it sounded. Steven didn’t think that it sounded too English, the boy had probably never heard any of his countrymen using nicknames. Steven, in fact, had not used nicknames since he had been a boy and, even then, his parents had not approved.

Turning his gaze back on Steven, the boy looked measuring at the older man and then, surprisingly agreed. “Yes,” he said. “Chris.” The boy repeated the word as if testing the feel of it on his tongue, his every movement so much more alive and sensual than anyone Steven had ever known.

“Your name?” The question almost caught Steven by surprise, but he opened his mouth to answer instantly only to pause on a breath. Steven thought of the name that he had given the boy and thought of those carefree days of childhood, carefree in a way this boy still was.

“Steve.”

The boy, Chris, repeated the name softly to himself, feeling the sound of it out as well. The taste of it must not have been horrible as he licked his lips and then stood, the movement fluid and graceful like the deer moves through the deep forest.

Chris looked around his small room, surveying his cage as it were Steven thought. He looked at Steven’s desk, over at the books that Steven had brought over from England, at his small bed in the corner. Suddenly Steven felt very silly to be sitting on his own floor and so he stood as Chris moved the curtain of his one window further aside.

Steven couldn’t help looking the boy over, looking at the back that was so exposed to him. Chris was lean, lanky like teenagers are but muscular. His muscles were rounded suggesting great power rather than long distances. It suited the boy’s exuberant personality. He was a little shorter than Steven and his shoulders had just begun to broaden. Steven thought he would soon become a powerful man.

But for now he was a beautiful boy of probably sixteen years. Steven wondered if Chris knew his age, or, rather, knew his age in years that Steven could understand.

His youth was emphasized when he dropped the curtain and turned back around to face Steven. “I just stay in here with you?” he asked, his face set in an overdone scowl.

Steven was certain that the boy meant to look intimidating but behind his bravado, Steven could clearly see that this was just a boy taken away from his family and put into a completely unfamiliar place with unfamiliar, possibly hostile people. And again, Steven hated that the boy was lumping him in together with the men that had brought him here. To Chris, it was Steven who was keeping him there.

“For now,” he said, prevaricating as much as he could. But he was not surprised when Chris turned away from him to look over the room again.

Steven could imagine what he was feeling, to be a boy so full of life and, yet, to be stuck inside. For Steven, it had been to learn, for his own benefit he was told, to read books and play instruments, but then too he had often looked outside the windows of his home and wished that he were somewhere where he could be free, be free to be himself.

He watched as Chris walked on bare feet over to his bookcase. The cloth kept the bare minimum of the youth’s modesty as he stooped to run his hands over the spines.

Steven moved forward then, hating feeling like a voyeur even as he was fascinated and entranced. If Chris were a girl and Steven a different man, he would already be seducing the youth.

But Steven wasn’t different and he wouldn’t take advantage of this boy to quench his own desires. So he stopped a respectable distance from tan skin and asked, “Do you read?”

Chris yanked his hand back from the books with a start but then set his jaw and glared at Steven, daring the other man to reprimand him. When it was clear the reprimand wasn’t coming, Chris replied, “Read?”

“Yes,” Steven said, picking up the nearest one to hold out. After throwing a questioning glance at Steven’s face, Chris eyed the book, reaching out his hand to touch but not tentatively. The boy ran his hand over it as one would a pet, or a lover. Steven felt a smile twist up the corners of his lips at the boy’s reaction, at the boy’s insistence at exploring the world physically, wholeheartedly. Steven had been told too many times as a boy not to touch, had been told to sit still and be quiet.

Moving closer, Steven opened the book to expose the writing on the pages inside. He let the smile widen as Chris looked up into his face, the boy’s own expression curious and so open. The boy didn’t protest their closeness, simply looked back down at the page, his long dark hair falling forward in a curtain as his hand went back out to touch. Chris stroked over the words as if he were feeling them, as if they would simply impart their secrets that way. Steven wondered absurdly if he would learn Chris’s secrets by touching the youth that way.

Suppressing that thought, Steven moved even closer, shifting the book into his left hand so that he could point at the words with his right. He read a sentence that way, his pointer finger trailing along underneath the words that he was speaking. He stopped reading when he realized the boy was looking up at him instead, making Steven suddenly very conscious of how close they had gotten.

He would have sworn that he could feel the heat of the boy’s naked skin through the cloth of his shirt in that moment. It was ridiculous. Chris was a boy in his teens with no idea what effect he was having while Steven was a grown man, an experienced man despite currently acting like he was still wet behind the ears. Steven knew better than to let his desires get carried away.

As the reading was interrupted, Chris took the book from him, tracing his own pointer finger over the words as if that way he too would be able to read them. The boy wasn’t stupid though, and subsequently, looked back up at Steven and said, “What else does it say?”

Steven looked at the book the boy was holding. It was a philosophy book and probably nothing the boy would understand. Surely he had a more interesting book than that. “Would you like me to read one to you?”

Chris’s look was straightforward as he nodded yes, not bashful as Steven had been as a child when asking an adult to read to him, to take time out to give him attention. Chris simply handed the book over purposefully.

Steven took the book and was just about to explain that he would read a different one, when there was a knock at the door. For a moment, he wondered who it could be with guards stationed outside until he noticed the failing light and realized it was suppertime. The woman who lived next door, whose children had been moderately intelligent, had taken pity on him being a single man and made certain that he was well fed.

He wondered what she thought of his current predicament as he put down the book and opened the door to see his guards holding a small pot of stew and bread. The woman herself, Magdalene was standing back behind them, looking at Steven apprehensively as if she had not been allowed near his actual door.

Steven smiled and waved at her in reassurance before taking the food from the men with a glare. As soon as he lifted the pot, he realized that she must have known about his unexpected guest as the pot was even heavier than normal and this was a woman who was already bound and determined to fatten him up.

Taking the bread in his other hand, he ordered, “Close the door,” as he stepped inside. He almost stepped on Chris who had left the bookshelf to stand and look out the open door.

Somehow the youth managed to both glare at the men outside and look curious. He did not however look afraid. Chris wasn’t hiding behind the furniture or the doorframe or even Steven but openly staring. Steven couldn’t help but be astonished by the boy. He himself had been so timid as a child, waiting obediently to be told what to do next.

“Dinner,” Steven simply said, moving past Chris who was looking at the door even after it was closed as if still puzzling out what he had seen. Steven went to his own small fireplace and placed the pot on a hook. As he turned around, he was wondering where they would eat as he only had one chair. Steven normally ate at his desk. He had never really had guests.

But he turned around to see the boy already seated on the floor again, looking eager for the food. That expression was one that Steven remembered well from his own boyhood, his raging appetite. Of course, he still had a healthy appetite. These days he actually did physical work, something he had never experienced before. Everyone in the small village helped with the farming and the building and fixing of things, and Steven liked to chop extra wood for Magdalene and her family.

Steven enjoyed the physical aspects of being in this new world. He enjoyed using his body as well as his mind. He enjoyed the tiredness that came from it and the peace and the sense of accomplishment. And the outdoors. He had grown up in the city and was always surrounded by people and buildings and noises and smells and now he loved to walk through the fields or the forests, to swim in the streams when no one else was around.

For a moment Steven just looked down at the boy, not knowing whether to eat at his desk or just join Chris on the floor. In the end, it was being near the youth that won. Chris’ enthusiasm and fearlessness and innocence were addictive. Steven both wished that he had such bravery and wanted to wrap the boy up in protective arms.

Instead, he simply handed the bread over to the boy who surprised him by looking into the cloth wrapped around it but not actually tearing into it. Steven grabbed two spoons and bowls, frankly he only had two, and served out the stew before sitting on the floor himself.

He thought it would feel awkward, a thirty something man sitting on the floor eating with a teenage boy. But it wasn’t. It felt…nice. It felt like he was recapturing his own enthusiasm, his own hope and innocence. Steven ate with more gusto than he had had for a long time and the food tasted better than he could ever remember.

Chris broke off a piece of the bread and handed it over to Steven like they were old friends just sitting around having a meal, breaking bread together like they did it all the time, all their differences forgotten.   
\---------------

They ate heartily but Chris refused the offered second helping. Steven set about washing their few dishes but was aware as Chris stood, passing his gaze over the room again. And then, noticing that it was getting dark, Steven lit several candles from the fire.

Moving back towards the boy, Steven’s eyes lingered on the boy, noticing how the candlelight brought out the warmth of Chris’s skin. At his approach, Chris looked up into his eyes, his face full of childish confusion as he said, “I have pee-pee.”

For a second, Steven was so stunned by the statement he barely understood it. He imagined that the words had been taught to Chris as a child, perhaps by his mother, but for Steven to hear it out of that luscious mouth in that deepening, raspy voice was more than a little disconcerting.

“Alright, uhh,” Steven probably should have been prepared for this instance but he was, in fact, not. “Come with me.” He gestured for the boy to move closer to his side as he opened the door of his house. The guards seemed just as surprised to see him coming out again.

“We have to go to the outhouse,” Steven said succinctly, already leading the boy away with a firm hand on the small of the boy’s bare back. He found himself almost curling protectively around the Indian youth as they walked through the small settlement. But Chris seemed entranced by what he saw around him, seemingly not noticing the scathing looks he was attracting.

At the communal outhouse, Steven had no choice but to lead them both inside. He pointed at the bench seat with its spaced holes. Fortunately Chris didn’t seem to need any further instruction and Steven forced himself to quickly look away as the boy’s blunt fingers moved towards the loincloth. Steven hurried to undo his own britches, but though he never looked over, he would have sworn that he could feel the boy’s eyes on him.

His britches fastened again, Steven’s hand went immediately back to the warm skin of the boy’s back. Chris could probably remember the way back but Steven felt absurdly like the boy would be snatched away from him if he let go.

The guards glared at him even as one of them opened the door for them. Steven glared right back, even as he said, “Thank you.”

Inside Steven’s hand immediately dropped from the boy’s skin and he couldn’t help putting some distance between them, feeling awkward at their earlier intimacy. He deliberately stepped away, turning to pour more water into the wash basin and washing his hands with their homemade soap, slowly enough that Chris would know how if he didn’t already. Then he gestured for Chris to take his turn.

Chris did, drying his hands on the cloth that Steven handed him. As Steven was folding the towel away, Chris moved back to the bookshelf, picking up a book again.

Steven followed shortly. Chris watched his approach with an air of expectation that Steven understood when the boy opened his mouth to say, “You will read now?” Steven smiled at the boy’s enthusiasm. Books had always been his refuge, where he could read about people doing and feeling things that he was too afraid to do. His fingers brushed against Chris’s lightly but enticingly as he took the book that the boy was now holding. Looking at the cover, he saw it was John Milton’s Paradise Lost. It seemed an oddly appropriate choice.

Chris watched him as he thought over the choice of book. Though it had a lot to do with English society that Chris might not understand, it was an interesting story. And Steven didn’t actually have any children’s books in his home. Not that they really read children’s books at school, just educational books.

Not having any better stories, Steven gestured with the book to Chris who smiled in appreciation. The boy led the way back to the fire as the night was getting chilly and sat down again on the floor. Again Steven couldn’t shake the feeling that it was an oddly intimate setting, oddly familiar.

Steven sat down on the floor himself after stoking the fire. He began to read, quietly so as not to disturb his neighbors while Chris stared at him in rapt attention. But it was not just attention to the story. Those sharp blues eyes also seemed to be looking at him, at Steven, and he couldn’t help but wonder what it was that Chris saw. Did he see a man whose steps plodded instead of the elegant movements that Chris made, crushing the earth under his feet without taking notice of the world around him? Did Chris see a fool who was trying to befriend and entertain a child who had been kidnapped and was being held against his will? Did Chris see Steven’s melancholy, a man who had lost all of his dreams and whimsy and was instead a shell of what he could have been?

Steven had to take a deep breath, a sip of water to cover for a moment. It was silly to think of such things, to think as if there were any other path, any other way to be. But as he looked over at Chris, he saw was a beautiful face that had tightened in honest concern for him, eyes that seemed to expose him, eyes that seemed fond and interested.

And as he began to read again, they both moved, getting more comfortable like they had nothing to hide from one another, no reason to be formal or overly polite despite that Steven had been raised to be decorous and reserved always. But as he watched Chris lay down on his stomach, Steve found himself moving to lean back against the solid legs of his desk, drawing up his knees. The flames of the fire cast dancing shadows on the ridges and hollows of Chris’s back and the boy leaned a cheek on his folded hands, his face still turned towards Steven, still watching with that affectionate attentiveness.

But as Steven read and the fire burned low, Chris’s eyelids became heavy, drooping until long dark lashes fell on high cheekbones. The boy was simply sprawled on Steven’s floor, loose-limbed and trusting. Steven set the book aside, marking the page, and then looked over his charge. Chris’s cheeks were downy smooth, no hint of stubble. In Steven’s experience, Indians did not grow heavy beards but Chris was not fully Indian by birth and he guessed that the boy was simply too young.

Steven’s eyes roamed down the length of the rest of the boy’s compactly muscular form, still feeling discomfited when he focused on how undressed, how exposed the beautiful youth was. He would forget for long periods and then it would hit him. Even as he watched, goosebumps broke out along the boy’s flesh and Chris shivered.

Sighing, Steven knew that he couldn’t leave the boy there in front of the dying fire. There was only one bed in the house and Chris would be sleeping in it. But Steven didn’t feel comfortable touching the boy to wake him. Despite the boy’s obvious comfort and trust, he couldn’t deliberately touch that bare and golden skin that was so easily displayed.

It was that ease that so disturbed him. Steven had had many sexual experiences, had certainly touched the milky white skin of youths in secret, but they were secret, and hurried. And afterwards Steven had always felt guilty at participating in the downfall of another youth, boys that already knew to be covert and ashamed.

Kneeling beside the boy, Steven hissed, “Chris,” then louder, “Chris!”

Long lashes parted unwillingly it seemed, though the boy didn’t seem bewildered by his surroundings upon waking. Instead, sleepy eyes blinked slowly at him before Chris pushed himself up, his movements heavy and clumsy and completely unlike they had been before.

Steven knew he had to help the process along and so, reluctantly, reached out a hand to grip the boy’s bicep. He tried not to think about the softness of the skin under his hand or the firmness of the muscle under the skin, but he couldn’t help but notice the way that the boy’s blue eyes focused on his face. He had expected to see confusion, for the boy to look affronted at the unasked for touch, but Chris just seemed grateful for the assistance as Steven helped pull him up from the ground, pull him over to the bed, and push him down into the hard bedding.

Chris sank into it, comfortable anywhere it seemed. His near-nude body immediately turned on his side to face the room, his legs curling in a little. Steven’s hand moved without conscious thought to stroke the boy’s long wild hair away from his face, and he felt the boy’s warm breath puff out onto his hand as he did so, deep and easy. Chris’ lips even seemed to smile as he closed his eyes again.

Steven did not fall asleep as easily that night. He forced himself to turn away from the boy, lying on the floor beside the bed with his extra blankets facing the wall. He lay there wondering what it was that was happening to him.

Steven did not imagine that there had ever been a time when he had ever been as free as the boy in his bed. He had learned to keep his thoughts and feelings and needs to himself long before the first time that he had looked at another boy and felt lust, long before he had first heard the rumors and the disdain and condescension as persons spoke of homosexuality.

He had been far too afraid to even think of approaching another boy then. His first experience had been with a man older than he was now, a teacher at his school who must have recognized how he looked at the man and the other schoolboys sometimes. Steven had already anticipated the haste and secrecy of such encounters, but the man had introduced him to the reality of them, to the roughness of them, the feel of a hot mouth around his dick as well as the feel of a demanding hand threaded through his low ponytail.

It had been a good lesson but he did not want to be that for this boy. Steven remembered how afterward he had felt both pleased and ashamed, sated but agitated. It was a feeling he had grown very familiar with. He had learned to read the signals that other men gave out, learned where to meet that kind of man, learned both what it felt like to sodomize and to be sodomized. He had learned a grudging kind of acceptance.

If he had ever had hopes of love or affection they died quickly in the aftermath of those first encounters, in the silence that followed them as they both had gotten dressed, in how they would both avert their eyes if they met again in public. To Steven the death of dreams had a sound. It was the sound of his own laughter as he joined in with the crowd sniggering at some poor fool who had gotten caught.

Eventually he must have fallen asleep because the next thing that he knew, he was hearing a knock at his door. After his late night, he was slow to move from his nest on the floor and only vaguely felt movement above him. Actually it took him a moment to remember why he was on the floor to begin with and then he was opening his eyes to see Chris already opening the door.

Opening his mouth, Steven’s words of warning died in his throat. Chris didn’t seem to understand how hostile and petty the other settlers could be in their disdain of the Cherokees and Indians in general, but even Steven was surprised when he saw a small pail of water being thrown in the boy’s face and splattering past onto the floor.

Steven was up off the floor in a flash, faster than Chris had even composed himself to respond. Wrapping his arms around the slimmer youth, Steven pulled the boy back tight against his chest just as Chris lunged forward. Steven couldn’t understand the words that Chris spat at the men but Steven definitely understood the words the men said, throwing the morning bread at the boy as well.

Steven was strong but trying to restrain the boy was like holding onto a wild animal, holding a tiger by the tail. He took at least one elbow to his ribs before he managed to pivot and thrust the boy back into the house.

Quickly he rounded back on the men who were serving as the ‘guards’ this morning, men he knew and liked and, yet, their behavior wasn’t surprising. It wasn’t surprising that they would have been overwhelmed by this pack mentality that pitted them against the Cherokee as an enemy. But Steven knew nothing would change it and did nothing more than glare at the men and shout, “Get more water and bread, now!!”

Whirling back around, Steven prepared himself to prevent Chris from flying at the now closed door but it seemed that Chris had gotten the message that he was woefully outmanned. Instead, he saw Chris stalking quickly past the window, apparently to glare at the low fire.

Leaving Steven at the door staring. He felt ashamed of the way that his people had reacted and he was afraid that whatever connection that he had forged with Chris had just been ruined. He desperately wanted to do something, to comfort the boy in some way but he had no idea how. Men did not comfort other men or boys and he had little experience with comforting women.

But this boy tugged on his heartstrings in a way that he couldn’t explain, this boy whose intelligent eyes seemed to see him for perhaps the first time. Cautiously, he reached out a hand to rest hopefully soothingly on the boy’s bare shoulder.

At the touch Chris turned towards him, away from the fireplace, clearly welcoming the contact and, emboldened, Steven went with his gut and placed his other hand on the boy’s other shoulder. It was the right thing to do as Chris took over, moving into the circle of Steve’s arms. Just shorter than Steven himself, Chris’s lips hit the coarse material of Steven’s shirt over his shoulder just before the youth’s full body pressed lightly against Steven.

Steven literally stopped breathing at the contact, afraid that any slight thing would break the spell. After a moment though, he had to take a breath and, when the boy did not move away at that, Steven slid his hands more firmly around the boy’s shoulders in an embrace. He could feel the Chris’s hands fisted lightly in the front of his shirt, holding on.

He couldn’t have articulated the emotions that swirled through him as they stood there holding onto one another. Steven drew as much comfort as Chris did, he was certain. Just to hold and be held, it was a luxury Steven hadn’t even known to miss. He squeezed a little tighter for a minute before relaxing and, unfortunately, the boy took that as a sign to let go. Steven was more than a little disappointed.

Chris stepped a little away, not far, not far enough for Steven to think for a moment that the boy regretted the hug. Chris’s face formed less of a glare now and more of a pout, full lips protruding just enough and making the boy look both younger and more enticing.

All of Chris’ emotions showed on his face, in the line of his body. Chris didn’t just experience the world fully, with sight and touch and sound and exuberance, Chris also experienced himself fully. The boy allowed his emotions, allowed them to be seen and felt. To Steven it made the boy seem younger and more innocent, but he supposed that that wasn’t actually the case. They were just different.

A knock sounded at the door then and two pairs of blue eyes locked before Steven moved away to answer it. The two men were more sedate now as they handed over a pail of water and some of yesterday’s bread. Steven took both without comment, the men closing the door behind him.

He set the bread down on the desk and then poured some of the water into the wash basin. He hadn’t even bothered to undress even a little last night and instead of really washing this morning, he just washed his hands and splashed some water on his face before moving away to allow Chris to do the same.

Breaking the bread, he handed a hunk over to Chris but the boy did not sit down in front of the fire to eat as he had done the night before. Instead he seemed to be pacing a short path between the fire place and the opposite wall where the door was. Every time he passed the window, sharp blue eyes lingered on the curtains, glaring at them, and Steven knew that Chris was contemplating opening that window to look out at his tormentors.

Chris did the lap a few dozen times, eating the bread as Steven calmly watched from his seat at the desk. Finally the youth slumped against the wall beside the window, not looking at Steven though Chris sighed loudly. Steven almost laughed out loud.

Chris might not be as childishly adorable and naïve as Steven sometimes thought of him, but Chris was definitely a teenager. He was bored and frustrated and, frankly Steven couldn’t blame the boy because he was too. He didn’t want to be stuck in his own house any more than Chris did.

And Steven didn’t have a clue what to do for either of them. So he turned to an old friend, picking up the book that they had been reading and holding it up. “Want to know what happens?”

Bright blue eyes lifted to look at him reluctantly and Chris nodded in agreement with a sullen set to his jaw. Chris moved then, a crouching half step to get closer to the fire before sitting. The fire was kept low as it was still warm at midday at this season. But the boy was wearing a lot less than Steven.

Steven sat on the floor again, not that he thought that Chris would have minded him reading from the chair. He just didn’t want that space between them, that extra bit of physical space but, also being above Chris. Steven didn’t want to be above Chris, sitting in his chair like a good Englishman, feeling superior to the red man as he read good English literature. He wanted to be with Chris, he wanted that intimacy that they had had the night before. He had as much, if not more to learn from Chris.

So he leaned back against his desk as he had the previous night, stretching his legs out in front of him. But Chris was not as engrossed as he had been before, he was restless. At first, Chris stretched out on the floor with his back to the fire as if he was cold, but soon the boy was repositioning. He sat up, and then laid down again, this time alongside Steven.

This time Steven was certain that Chris was as busy watching him as the boy was listening to the story. For a while Chris watched his face, the way his lips formed the words, the way his fingers turned the page, the way his chest rose and fell with his breaths. And, though, Steven didn’t feel judged, still saw that fondness in the boy’s eyes and expression, Steven still found himself feeling a little self-conscious. He wanted to impress the boy he realized with a start. He wanted Chris to like what he saw.

In time the boy moved even closer, seeming then to be more interested in Steven’s pants, eventually reaching out an incautious hand to fondle a loose thread. Steven wanted to reach down and fondle one of the boy’s braids, wanted to lie down beside Chris and wrap his arms around the youth as during their earlier hug. He wanted to know so much about the boy but didn’t know where to begin, didn’t want to bring up a painful subject when Chris obviously wanted to go home.

Before he had time to warm up to any questions, Chris lazily got up on his knees and said, “Can we go to the outhouse?”

Steven couldn’t help but smile, both in remembrance of Chris’ earlier words to ‘peepee’ and because the youth had learned so quickly that Steven called it the outhouse. As soon as the smile stretched his lips though, Chris’s hand was there, fingers tracing over the pull of muscles in Steven’s cheek but only following it down to the corner of Steven’s lips.

The boy had a surprised, amused expression as he did this, and Steven wondered how often he had smiled in the boy’s presence, how often he smiled at all. He could almost hear the boy thinking that he should smile more. And then Chris’s face broke out into his own grin and the moment was lost as they stood up.

Steven shielded the boy again as they left the house. But he couldn’t help looking at the boy in the sunshine in a different light. Out there in the world, the boy seemed more real, even more alive instead of just a fantasy that existed only in Steven’s mind. Chris walked tall and proud, unconcerned with Steven’s hovering, and he still looked around, interested in these people even after everything. His step was soft and spritely, not the trudging of these people in their heavy shoes but steps that seemed more at home in forests.

Again, Steven kept his eyes averted before ushering Chris back to their tiny prison. The guards had brought more bread and Steven busied himself reheating the stew from the previous night. Chris hovered over his shoulder for a moment, then moved to look at the book that Steven had been reading aloud, then over to the bookcase. Basically the boy was not interested in lunch or staying in that tiny room.

A moment later, the boy’s hands dropped from the books and he huffed as if he couldn’t contain the sound. Then Chris was flopping onto the unmade bed as only teenagers can. Steven couldn’t help but abandon their makeshift lunch, drawn over by the boy’s emotions. Cautious that any second the boy could rebuff his attempts at comfort, Steven sat on the side of the bed.

Chris’s face was turned away from him but Steven still knew that the youth was aware of him. Chris seemed always aware of him. Thinking of before, of how Chris had moved into his awkward attempt at physical comfort, Steven moved his hand to brush the boy’s dark hair back. As before the move prompted Chris to turn his face, to move into the hand so that Steven could follow the hair down to its ends. Steven couldn’t help doing it again, deliberately trailing his fingers over a thin braid and the beads in it at the end.

“I know you don’t want to be here…” Steven began. His words caused Chris to turn his head sharply to glare at the Englishman, saying without words that Steven had no idea what Chris was going through.

“I don’t want to be here either,” Steven admitted. Chris’s eyes went soft at the confession, hurt like he felt worse for Steven, like he understood that Steven was not one of his captors but another captive. But Steven meant much more than just being stuck in his house watching this Indian boy. For the first time, Steven mourned the freedom that he had never known. He didn’t want to be stuck in this house, in this settlement, in this way of life that had trained him not to show emotion and not to give or receive comfort. That had taught him to plod along instead of to run free.

Chris turned a little onto his side, curling almost alongside Steven and then he fisted a hand into the worn, loose material of Steven’s pant leg. Steven realized belatedly, that he was becoming addicted to the way that Chris responded to him, to the way that Chris seemed to need and want him.

“You miss your home?” Steven asked.

Chris gave a ghost of a sad smile and turned his eyes back up to look at Steven’s face. Chris spoke haltingly, not like he didn’t know the words in English but like he was searching for the words to express his feelings. “I miss the gentleness of my mother’s hands. I miss the soothing sound of my grandfather’s voice at night. I miss running with the other boys through the woods, the sound of their laughter mixing with the sounds of the forest…”

Chris stopped talking but his gaze had gone sharp as he looked into Steven’s eyes. Chris was looking at Steven as if he were certain that the man would understand. And even though Steven had never experienced any of what Chris had mentioned, he felt like he did understand. He even missed it.

“You don’t have a family, Steve? A wife?”

Chris’s hand was warm on his thigh, Steven noticed as he broke eye contact. “No,” he answered simply. But Chris noticed him pulling away more than just physically and, in response, tugged lightly on Steven’s pant leg. The gesture had the sides of his lips curling up as he look back down at the boy’s bright, blue eyes.

“Your mother?” Chris asked the question with the naiveté of a child who doesn’t know that not everyone had a happy childhood.

“She is in England still.”

“She does not miss you?”

Steven couldn’t help the hand that began to stroke over the boy’s hair again, more to comfort himself when Chris moved into the touch as usual. “Things are different in England…”

Steven stopped there though because he found that he could not describe it. Being in the New World was so far outside of his previous experience, it was hard to quantify what the differences were. And how could he explain it to this happy child? Even this settlement with all their English ways was nothing like England.

And yet, Chris nodded as if he did understand, understand that there was something distinctly different about the Englishmen in this settlement and in settlements all over. The English were not like the Indians. And Chris seemed to understand that Steven could not express it and did not press.

They were still for a moment, blue eyes locked in understanding and kinship, sympathy and affection, Chris’s hand still twisted in Steven’s pant leg and Steven’s hand in Chris’s hair. The moment was broken when Chris’s eyes became more amused and he asked, “Steve, will you read some more?”

Steven couldn’t help smiling which caused Chris to break out into a full grin. Reading seemed to be the only thing to do with their time together so, of course, he would read some more. But he enjoyed the sound of his boyhood nickname from Chris’s lips.

Chris sat up then, bringing them suddenly face to face, closer than perhaps the boy had intended. But Chris didn’t move away, simply looked speculatively at Steven before ducking his head away coyly, hiding a smile. If Steven didn’t know better he would have thought that the boy was attempting to flirt. But it was not flirting like men did, that hard pursuit of a single purpose; it was more like women did, that questioning and patient dance of interest.

Particularly when Chris’s hand trailed down his leg as the boy stood up. Steven was shocked into stillness for a moment for he would have sworn that that touch was of a different sort, not just comfort.

Steven tried to shake off the thought. The boy probably had no idea what he was doing and in any case, Steven was not going to pursue it. But…but suddenly Steven was once again very aware of how little the boy was wearing to cover that expanse of tan skin, of the grace with which Chris moved and the light in his expression.

Feeling off balance, Steven got off the bed, trying to smile back realistically. “Do you want to have some lunch first?”

“Yes,” Chris replied with a sheepish look. “Some food would be nice.” Steven couldn’t decide whether the boy looked sheepish because as a teenage boy, he had a large appetite, or whether it was because his outburst of frustration had delayed their lunch.

Steven spooned out the rest of the stew and broke the bread in half. Chris ate with the same gusto but Steven’s mind was elsewhere. It had been a long since he had thought of affection between men, imagined finding love and a partner, if indeed he had ever been that hopeful. But now, with Chris, Steven couldn’t help wishing for impossible things, couldn’t help but think of taking his time mapping that body, think of affectionate glances and soft, soothing touches, think of waking up every morning to that boundless energy and insatiable curiosity, Chris’s gentle strength and understated bravery.

It was ridiculous. Steven concentrated on eating his meal and then washing the bowls and spoons again. When he turned back, Chris was looking at the pages of the book that they were reading and it felt suddenly unfair that Chris didn’t know what the words said.

He gently pulled the book away, prompting Chris to look up with that painfully open expression. “You will read some more now?”

“Would you like to learn how to read?” Steven asked instead of answering.

Chris wrinkled his nose adorably in perplexity. “But I can’t…”

Steven couldn’t resist reaching a hand out to stroke the expression off the boy’s face, causing Chris to light up with a smile and a snorted laugh. Steven loved that he didn’t have to stifle his impulses. “I can teach you to read.”

The bright grin stayed on Chris’s face, now tinged with excitement. The boy then pulled the book back from Steven’s hands, looking at it with new interest. Steven laughed at Chris even as he pulled a different book, not from the shelf but from the top of his desk. It was one of the school books and wouldn’t be as exciting but it would be easier for Chris to learn with.

Chris followed as Steven went to sit down on the floor again. Normally Steven would have a blackboard and the students would have their own books, but he would make do. He opened the book to the first page and set it on the ground in front and between them. His efforts at putting the book in the middle didn’t stop Chris from leaning into his side, though.

They began with the alphabet and Steven pointed to the letter A with his finger. Chris traced the letter with his own finger and carefully watched Steven’s lips as the sound was pronounced. Steven was almost afraid that Chris would trace his lips as they moved, but it didn’t come to that. Chris was simply engrossed in learning, in touching and watching and speaking and hearing. And Steven also thought that Chris was engrossed in connecting to him. Chris waited for Steven’s confirmation that his pronunciation was correct and then smiled, brushed his fingers against Steven’s to get at the letter even when Steven moved his hand. And Steven found himself laughing openly at the youth’s antics, at the seriousness with which Chris would pronounce the letters only then to smile and press closer when Steven commended him.

They were picking out some words that Chris knew when the knock came for dinner. The sad, pained look that came over the boy’s beautiful features then had Steven wanting to yell and scream at the guards, to throw his own bucket of water. Knowing that that would get them nowhere, Steven simply took the food wordlessly as Chris waited by the fire.

Chris’s mood was still dampened as Steven spooned at that night’s stew and handed Chris the bread. It wasn’t until Steven sat down beside him and bumped his shoulder that Chris began to eat.

After dinner, Chris asked again to go to the outhouse and when they got back Steven gestured for the boy to have first turn at the washbowl. As Steven took his turn, he saw Chris out of the corner of his eye. The boy had gone to pick up the book that Steven had been reading and taken it to the bed.

Drying his hands, Steven turned to watch as Chris made himself comfortable on the far end of the bed, closest to the wall, still holding the book. Then Chris smiled at him, saying, “Steve, I want you to read more,” as if the boy weren’t lying in his bed on display like an invitation to sin.

But what could Steven do? He certainly couldn’t say no to the boy, didn’t want to even if it would be torture to know that the boy really was inviting nothing more than reading and innocent touches.

Steven climbed on the bed, wary of getting too close even though he wasn’t the least bit surprised when he lay back only to have Chris snuggle closer. Chris handed over the book but then let his hand fall on Steven’s belly. Of course, Chris fell asleep like that, but Steven was startled when he woke up the next morning in the same position.   
\------------------

Chris was as close as ever, a warm weight of soft skin against his side, and, for a moment, Steven wished that he too were mostly naked, that he could have that feeling against his own skin. His hand had migrated during the night, wrapping itself around the boy’s bare back without his conscious knowledge.

His first thought was to sneak out as quickly and quietly as possible. He didn’t want Chris to think that he had taken advantage of the boy in the night. Unfortunately, before he could do more than take a deep breath in anticipation of his flight, Chris stirred.

But if Steven were expecting accusations, shame, or even embarrassment that wasn’t what he got. True to form, Chris only blinked long lashes against Steven’s shirt, looking up at Steven with that fond, intimate expression that Steven was beginning to crave. Steven’s clothes rucked up as the boy moved sleepily before finally rolling a little away.

Steven didn’t have time to be disappointed in the change in proximity because, immediately, Chris said his name, “Steve…” in that grumbly, sleep-hoarse voice that screamed sincerity and trust and intimacy and all those emotions that he hadn’t ever dared hoped to hear before.

Much less hoped to hear from a beautiful boy in his bed. Steven had to force himself not to turn onto his own side, to simply follow with his own body. Steven only turned his head to see the grimace on Chris’s face.

“There is no reason to get up,” Chris said petulantly after a moment. “We have nothing to do.”

The words were spoken matter-of-factly and Steven found no reason to disagree. He simply lay there as Chris sat up and then flopped back down with a huff.

It was a move that he would become very familiar with over the next week. Chris would stand up and then sit back down after a moment. The boy would walk from the bookshelf to the fireplace to the bed and then to the window, only lingering momentarily at each place as if he couldn’t decide where to be. He huffed and groaned and grumbled. He frowned more and smiled less.

And Steven found himself trying anything and everything to keep the boy happy. He still taught Chris to read, but it held less and less of Chris’s attention as the days went on. He still read to the boy, but Chris had a harder time keeping still, being attentive.

Chris only seemed to settle under Steven’s hand really. Steven began laying a hand on the boy’s shoulder as Chris paced, rubbing Chris’s arm as he taught the youth to read, stroking the boy’s hair as Steven read to the boy at night. He had not spent another night in bed with the boy, but every night began with them both in the bed. Chris would invite him, but he also felt that Chris might not be able to sleep without him lying there. Steven was just vigilant about slipping out of the bed, out from underneath the boy’s arm before either the temptation of sleep or the temptation of Chris could get to him.

They spoke haltingly of their differing homelands. Chris told Steven the stories that had been told to him, of Hummingbird and Yunwi Tsunsdi’. But Steven didn’t want to share too much. He felt like he had been given some sort of second chance, a moment out of time in which Steven was able to be himself and he didn’t want his thoughts to linger on what had been. He didn’t want to taint this boy’s innocent nature. He did share his memories of his mother’s crisp voice in his lessons, of listening to his father’s deep rumbling voice through the door of the study since Steven hardly ever saw the man. But the pain in Chris’s eyes at the remembrances hurt Steven worse than the actual memories.

Steven had also had to change his clothes a couple times in the week that they had been sequestered. He had tried to do so in the early mornings before Chris had awoken, but his efforts had been unsuccessful. He had removed his shirt and set about scrubbing his chest and arms with a washcloth when he had the impression of being stared at. Turning around, he flushed pink at seeing bright blue eyes on him. The boy was looking so intently, Steven half expected Chris to get up and touch him, for Chris to run his hands over Steven’s bare chest to learn it as he learned most other things.

Turning back around, Steven was tempted to just pull on his shirt. It was difficult to remember that he was the older, more experienced of the pair, that this was his home. In a way he felt like he was putting on a show, but in a way he liked it, liked having someone see him without any barriers, liked being the object of Chris’s regard. He washed quickly but thoroughly, acutely aware of every drag of the cloth over his wet skin. He pulled on his clean shirt before changing into his second pair of britches.

Chris had obstinately refused to wash out of the washing bowl, asking many a time to wash in the river, to leave the house for just a little while.

And the seventh morning was no exception. The guards had brought fresh water, but Chris refused to accept that one could thoroughly wash out of a bowl. Each day had just gotten worse as today, the youth threw himself back into bed as if he didn’t intend to move from it. The day before Chris hadn’t even had an appetite.

Steven was at the end of his rope too. He hated seeing Chris so upset, hated that he himself was so passive about the injustice.

He made the decision in an instant and didn’t stop to second guess it. Steven simply grabbed Chris’s hand and pulled the youth out of bed, grinning in response to the question in Chris’s eyes. Together they marched to the door.

At first the guards just let them walk on past before they realized their ‘prisoners’ were not in fact headed for the outhouse. Then they were running to catch up, to get in front of the other pair.

“Whoa, where do you think that you are going?” The guard who spoke seemed incredulous that Steven would even be attempting to escape and Steven rather agreed with him. Since his arrival in this settlement, Steven had never been one to toe the exact line but he had never directly challenged the way that things were.

Steven also wasn’t surprised when one guard then disappeared, no doubt running to his ‘superior’ to straighten things out.

“We’re going to the river. It’s on the other side of this settlement from the Cherokee camps, but you’re welcome to come with us…”

“Now, now,” David came jogging up, that perpetually patronizing tone and convivial disarming smile. “Steven, I thought that you were smarter than to take suggestions from that savage…Christian. It’s probably an ambush,” David suddenly remembered the name and seemed to take great pleasure in using it.

Just barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Steven moved to keep walking as he said, “It wasn’t the boy’s idea, it was mine…”

David put a restraining hand out, placing it on Steven’s chest to stop his movement. To Steven it was an annoying gesture but Chris took offense, moving forward with a snarl to push David’s hand away.

Steven was quick thinking enough to grab Chris around the shoulders, pulling the boy into his side before things could escalate. It was a sweet gesture but the boy was obviously a little hot headed. Not only were they hopelessly outnumbered but he recognized the dangerous glint in David’s eyes.

He could feel the boy’s muscles tight under his hands, Chris’s spine rigid against him, but he was more concerned with David’s reaction. David’s gaze had turned sharp, evaluating the boy as if he had suddenly discovered something worth taking.

Steven pressed Chris closer into his side. David had a wife and two beautiful children but Steven knew that the man had more than looked at some of his students, girls and boys. Steven supposed that he shouldn’t have been surprised that men with questionable tastes would have gone to the new world as he had done.

David actually reached out a hand, tangling a single lock of brown hair around his fingers, his eyes showing only approval and want as Chris snarled at him. “Maybe he does need a bath,” David then suggested as if it were only a passing consideration.

Chris jerked his head back, pulling his hair out of David’s reach though David didn’t seem offended by the move. His eyes simply kept caressing skin that Steven knew from experience was soft, as he said, “But I can’t let you go.”

Steven didn’t know how long negotiations would last for this kind of thing, the ransoming of a living, breathing person, but he did know that he wasn’t going to be shut up in that house any longer. At first he had rejoiced in the novelty of a companion in his misery, but quickly he found that he could not abide another person experiencing the tedious doldrums that characterized his existence.

But more than that Steven had discovered that he wasn’t going to tolerate it either. Purposefully raising his voice, Steven objected, “It’s not just the boy that’s been a prisoner in that house! I have been stuck in there with him this whole time and I am going to the river and he is coming with me! Our guards can come if you wish.”

Steven realized that his plan was working even as David stepped close in a menacing gesture. He could see that David’s eyes were taking in all the people around, all the people poking their heads out of their doors and windows. In the end, doing this publicly wouldn’t save Steven from retribution but doing it publicly insured their trip to the river. David was an expert in subtle intimidation that could make Steven’s life miserable, or more miserable.

“I know that you think that you’re smart, Steven, but know that if you lose this captive, it will be on your head.” Though the beginning was just for his ears, the last part David said loud enough for the onlookers to hear. And Steven knew that it was no idle threat. Chris was a bargaining piece that David had convinced the settlement they needed in this ongoing conflict. Letting Chris go would easily been seen by everyone as traitorous.

“I understand.” Steven tried to put all the gravity he felt into his voice. He understood the risks, but he wanted this one moment of freedom anyway.

Chris seemed confused as they walked away, looking back behind them to see that David was waving the guards away. “They’re not coming with us?” he asked.

“No,” Steven said. He knew that David was just giving him plenty of rope to hang himself.

“Thank you,” Chris said sincerely as they neared the gate.

Steven shook his head, unable to express that he had done it as much for himself as for Chris. But as always, Chris seemed to understand at least the gravity of the situation, understand Steven’s emotions better than he himself did as the youth leaned into his shoulder. Chris nuzzled his face into the coarse fabric for a moment, reassuringly.

But as they walked outside the walls of the settlement, Steven couldn’t help but feel an excitement build within him. He had been outside the settlement dozens of times but it had never felt like this, had never felt like freedom or tasted of accomplishment. His arm instinctively loosened the vice grip that he had had on Chris and the boy took advantage of the freedom to turn in his loosened hold, grinning a triumphant affectionate grin.

Steven barely had time to register the joy in Chris’s face before the boy was sprinting away like a jackrabbit towards the trees. He probably should have expected it and he definitely should have been immediately concerned with his own safety when returning to the settlement, but, as he watched the boy lope across the tall grass, powerful thighs finally in use, all Steven felt was abandonment.

But his thoughts didn’t get past that initial feeling, because then, Chris was slowing and turning back to him, still grinning the youth gestured for Steven to catch up. Then it was like everything broke loose inside Steven, and he dropped his head to his chest even as he was smiling.

He ran, like he hadn’t run since he had been a toddler and he had probably been scolded even then. He felt the grass whipping against his body as he passed, felt the sun on his face and the whole time he could see Chris in front of him, sunlit and beautiful and waiting for him.

He ran right into Chris’s waiting arms. Chris grabbed Steven’s hand with both of his own and pulled Steven to follow after him, throwing back his head to laugh pure and sweet while the sun gilded his brown hair.

They headed into the forest then, Chris like a wood nymph leading Steven to his almost certain doom, but, in that moment, Steven thought that it was more than worth it. He no longer felt heavy and awkward despite that he didn’t compare to the grace of movement that Chris had.

The river came into sight, but Steven was surprised when instead of slowing Chris simply twisted while still holding Steven’s hands, their momentum carrying them toward the ground. Steven twisted himself, trying to take the brunt of their fall, only realizing afterward that Chris had been going for the upper hand anyway. Steven ended up flat on his back under Chris’s laughing smiling face.

He couldn’t help where his mind went as Chris sat up, straddling Steven just above his crotch. And then Chris reached for the tie to the neck of his shirt.

“Whoa,” Steven said breathlessly, catching Chris’s hands in his own. But the word had been said with amusement not reprimand, and Chris only smiled and wiggled where he was perched on Steven.

“Steve, you can’t wear your clothes to bathe,” Chris explained reasonably.

Those simple words dampened the moment as Steven was reminded that Chris wasn’t like him, wasn’t a homosexual, a deviant. The boy was simply too naïve to realize how his current actions might be taken.

Moving Chris’s hands away from his shirt, Steven attempted to sit up, dislodging Chris in the process who grudgingly moved to squat next to him. “I can remove them myself,” he said still trying to smile.

Chris wasn’t fooled, though. The boy knew that the mood had changed, and his expression flickered somewhere between a playful pout and a serious one. Ignoring him, Steven attempted not to be persuaded by the way Chris’s light blue eyes seemed to catch stray strips of sunshine filtering through the trees or the way said eyes seemed to be avidly watching him pull his shirt out of his britches and over his head.

Steven moved to stand, holding his shirt in his hand awkwardly for a moment before deciding to rest it on a nearby fallen tree. Chris stood with him, eyes dark in the shadows. The boy stood staring for a moment as if frozen, before he was grinning again, a mischievous smile.

Not understanding the context, Steven stilled in his task, simply watching as Chris’s blunt fingers went to his loincloth. Steven was certain that he looked stricken, that his face was giving everything away as he watched Chris strip off that tiny cloth that had been the only thing keeping his modesty, the only thing keeping Steven’s fantasies in check. Chris’s face on the other hand still shone with that evil lopsided smirk, that impish twinkle in his eye.   
The way that Steven’s eyes moved immediately downward probably gave him away as well. If he had not been caught so off guard, perhaps, he could have least tried to keep his eyes up for a few seconds, he thought. But if Chris understood the intent in his gaze, the boy didn’t seem the least bothered by it, simply shifting his stance as Steven’s eyes landed upon the dark thatch of hair and the length of flesh that was decidedly not soft as Steven had expected but thickening and twitching under his gaze.

He didn’t have time to look up into Chris’s face as suddenly the boy turned around, and Steven was just as entranced by the view from the back. If Steven saw anything besides the roll of muscle underneath tan skin, it was only the swish of dark hair over broadening shoulders.

And then that captivating body was disappearing under dark water, leaving Steven the one feeling stripped bare. But as Chris reemerged, water droplets trailing down skin to meet the water at Chris’s hips, all Steven could see on the boy’s face was affection and amusement.

“Come, Steve,” Chris said, his own smile dampened no doubt by Steven’s strange mood. The boy seemed almost unsure now about the invitation and that had Steven pulling again at the strings tying his britches.

Purposefully, Steven pushed the cloth down his legs, kicked off his shoes, and stood naked before Chris in the dappled sunshine. And it felt good. It felt good when Chris’s smile widened, became more confident again, when Chris held out his hand as if Steven needed the help.

Steven took the offered hand, smiling back. Chris came to meet him, stepping further out of the water, but, this time, Steven didn’t look down the boy’s body because he was busy watching Chris’s face. Chris’s blue eyes had turned hesitant again, hopeful, and he licked pink lips uncertainly.

Steven didn’t have time to question what had caused the change when the hand that wasn’t holding his, cupped his face, firmly drawing him down into a kiss. The kiss began as simply a press of lips as if Chris hadn’t really thought past that, but then Steven heard Chris draw in a sharp breath through his nose. Subsequently, Chris was sliding plush lips along Steven’s own, eagerly, enticingly, pressing close until Steven’s own hand was gripping the back of Chris’s head. At that move, Chris parted his lips, encouraging Steven deeper, closer, harder.

For a moment, Steven didn’t even think about resisting. He had never experienced a kiss like this, a kiss simply for the sake of kissing, for the sake of passion during which he didn’t have two brain cells to spare to wonder if they would be caught.

But, perhaps, it had been the lack of air because as soon as they broke, Steven began to question Chris’s motivation even as the boy’s lithe body moved against his as if trying to get closer. Two hands were still tangled in long hair, one light, one dark, as Steven asked, “Why?”

Chris cocked his head slightly at the question, clearly confused before he smiled, easy and wide. “I love you.”  
Steven was dumbstruck by the words and he sucked in his own sharp breath. Chris made it sound so uncomplicated and comfortable, as if it were just something that happened no matter the society or circumstances or people involved. Chris said it as if love really did conquer all.

But Steven’s mind reeled away from the idea and all its implications. What could this boy know about love or life? What could Chris know about him after a week?

“Why?” Steven asked again, dropping his hand and pulling out of Chris’s grip to step back.

Then Chris really looked baffled, the happy smile fading as his hand dropped back to his side. It seemed to take him a moment to understand that Steven genuinely wanted to know. Then his expression changed from betrayed to sympathetic.

Chris shifted as if he wanted to regain their earlier nearness, their intimacy before stilling to speak. “I love the way I feel when you’re near, the way I feel when you speak, when you touch me.” Chris paused there as if finished, as if love were just a feeling regardless of the good or bad qualities of the person loved.

Chris’s expression changed again as Steven remained silent, and the boy began to look abandoned, lost and wounded. His voice reflected that as he started again, “Steve, you are kind and intelligent and…”

Steven didn’t let the boy finish then. He no longer cared why the boy would even think to be in love with someone like him, because he couldn’t stand back and see the boy crumple. That inexplicable urge to comfort the boy rose in him again, propelling him forward with arms reached out to hold.

He moved forward, seeing Chris’s eyes shine bluer than ever, shining with affection and relief and love. God, that fool boy…

Both arms wrapped around the boy this time as Steven’s lips came crashing down. He had in mind to soften the kiss, but Chris opened under him, yielding to Steven’s ardor, encouraging his forcefulness. Like a runaway horse, his passion seemed to escape the bonds of Steven’s control and he pulled Chris tight, tighter, against him. They stood in thigh deep water, naked and visible to anyone who looked, but the only thing that Steven could think on was plunging his tongue into the hot welcoming cavern of Chris’s mouth.

Steven didn’t even realize that neither had attempted anything more until Chris began to unconsciously hump Steven’s hip. He probably should have stopped it right there, knowing that he was getting in over his head, that he was doing exactly what he had convinced himself not to do, but he only broke their lips apart to ask, “Have you ever lain with a man?”

Steven was afraid that Chris would not understand what he meant, but as Chris’s hands that had been gripping Steven’s biceps had, at the interruption, begun to head down along Steven’s sides, he supposed that their position ought to make the meaning clear.

Once again, Steven grabbed Chris’s hands, holding them still against his bare chest which just caused Chris to grin, that infectious, mischievous smile that had Steven wanting to just drop his questions and concerns and simply follow wherever Chris led.

But then Chris’s eyes dropped, that coquettish gesture that should have been out of character for the boy but wasn’t, because Chris showed his insecurities as openly as he showed his bravado. “No,” Chris said simply even as he broke Steven’s hold and snaked his slim, muscular arms up around Steven’s neck. “I want you,” Chris said and then he was looking straight into Steven’s eyes.

But still Steven was not satisfied and queried, “With a girl?” immediately. Chris smiled then, slow and easy and seductive as he tightened his arms around Steven’s neck and answered, “No.”

Steven knew that the boy was pulling him into another consuming kiss, and he knew that if he allowed it he wouldn’t stop. With his own grumble, he pushed Chris back, sliding his right hand to cup Chris’s face to ease the rejection.   
Still the look on Chris’s face tore at him even as the boy turned into the hand on his cheek, big blue eyes looking at Steven imploringly while full wet lips brushed his palm. But it wasn’t the easy sexuality that Chris exuded that was most enticing to Steven, it was the look in Chris’s eyes, that look like Steven mattered to Chris, that Chris wanted and needed him.

“Later,” Steven whispered, the softness of his voice perhaps due to the importance of the message. “At the house, not here. Get washed.”

The order had Chris stepping back a step, a tiny flicker of hope breaking through the agonizing dismay written on his beautiful face. “Quickly,” Steven encouraged with his own small smile.

It was the sign that Chris had apparently been waiting for as he smiled back tentatively and moved a little farther away. Chris splashed water on himself absently, seemingly afraid to take his eyes off Steven. The boy was so obvious Steven could literally read the trail of each droplet of water that ran down his naked flesh in the movement of Chris’s blue eyes.

Steven deliberately turned his eyes away from Chris, stepping a little closer to shore to grab the soap. He hoped to lead by example, if he hurried maybe Chris would…

His thoughts were cut off when a splash of water hit his back. He was smiling even before he had fully turned around to see that Chris had moved deeper into the water and was grinning. But Steven didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to retaliate, it had been so many years since he had actually been teased like this.

But Chris made it easy, swimming closer to shore, inviting Steven to follow him with that grin, to step into the deeper water. Then those strong arms were around Steven as Chris asked impishly, “Can I help?”  
Steven almost said no, almost told Chris to wash himself quickly or they’d never make it back to the house. But then he thought of all of his previous rushed sexual experiences. This was so different. Chris was obviously not just looking for sex which was all Steven had learned to expect.

Looking down to see tan hands on his pale skin, gliding up his chest, Steven didn’t even protest as Chris leaned him back into the water. He couldn’t reconcile this comforting touch with Chris’s blatant sexuality, had never experienced the two together.

He gasped involuntarily as gentle hands supported his neck and removed the leather tie keeping his hair in a ponytail. It felt simply amazing as firm hands massaged his scalp, and Steven shifted his eyes from his view of the sky to look at Chris’s expression of concentration. They were pressed almost as close now as they had been before, but there was nothing of urgency and everything of reassurance and affection. Steven could see the way the water had clumped Chris’s eyelashes into points, watched as wrinkles appeared between Chris’s eyebrows, and when Chris licked his plush bottom lip, Steven had never wanted to kiss a person more in his life.

So he did, he pulled Chris down to his lips, kissing him even as they sank into the water when Chris lost his footing. They surfaced sputtering and laughing and both diving back in to the kiss.   
“Let’s go,” Steven whispered against Chris’s lips. Chris nodded but Steven had to lean his face away, laughing as Chris had gone immediately back to licking Steven’s lips. It was Chris who stepped back then and Steven found himself hurrying to get dressed like he was the horny adolescent. His clothes clung to his wet skin, and Steven knew that he was as dirty now as when they got to the river as he shoved his feet in his shoes.

And yet as soon as he looked up, his own long blonde waves falling in his face like he never allowed, and he caught Chris’s eyes and Chris’s hand in his own…

Steven didn’t even remember the walk back, didn’t realize that the light was fading, didn’t see if their appearance garnered any strange looks from his neighbors. When they got to his own house, they discovered that the guards were gone and there was only Magdalene’s pot of stew in front of the door. All he knew was that he did have the presence of mind to grab the pot of stew and light some candles.   
\---------------------

He was setting the candle down by the bed when he felt hands ghosting along his waist, coming to rest over his stomach just as the heat of Chris’s body settled against his back. His breath stuttered out as those hands gripped the hem of his damp shirt, skimming whisper-light over his skin as they pulled it up his chest.

Steven felt like he was the one being seduced, as if he were the one to be beguiled with a gentle hand. And even though he didn’t need caresses as encouragement, he couldn’t help enjoying them, enjoy that Chris seemed to want him just as much. He turned around, helping Chris to pull his shirt off. Chris’s hands were already on his bared skin as Steven was tossing the shirt away.

Chris’s eyes and hands ran over Steven’s skin like he had never seen Steven shirtless before. Steven had never worried much about what he looked like, men like him didn’t have that many options and once the clothes were off…well, then everything was just about getting off. But when Chris ran capable, calloused hands along the indentations of muscle in his chest, he found himself wondering again what Chris saw.

By the way that Chris’s eyes took in every little thing, the adoration in his touch, Steven figured that whatever it was that Chris saw when the boy looked at him, it must be better than what Steven actually was. When Chris’s thumbs brushed purposefully over Steven’s nipples, he bit his lip to keep the sound in but couldn’t stop his own hands from reaching out to Chris.

He pushed the youth back to sit on the bed before his hands were on the loin cloth, and it didn’t matter that he had seen what was underneath at the river, a thrill of anticipation ran through him as he tugged it off. It was the anticipation of having all night to indulge all of the fantasies that Steven had convinced himself he didn’t have, the time to explore every inch of that beautiful male form.

Chris, however, was not satisfied with Steven doing all the unwrapping, and his hands went to Steven’s britches. He smiled as Steven finally let him undo the tie there. The cloth fell around Steven’s ankles, and Steven hastily kicked his shoes back off. And then there was nothing between them.

As Steven raised his right hand to tilt Chris’s face up, he was reminded that this was the youth’s first time by the naïve, expectant and wide-eyed look there. Though Chris didn’t seem at all reluctant for this to be his first experience, Steven still felt the responsibility of it. He wanted this experience to be as amazing as the youth himself.

He realized immediately that he himself also wanted this experience to be as amazing as the Indian youth, as sensual and uninhibited, as free. So Steven took the time to look, to trace his thumb over the curve of Chris’s eyebrow and down the line of Chris’s cheekbone and finally over the full curves of Chris’s lips. A pink tongue emerged to taste, wet and softer even than Chris’s lips.

He couldn’t resist dipping his thumb experimentally into the wet cavern of Chris’s mouth, the pad of his thumb stroking Chris’s tongue only for the youth to run his teeth along it as Steven removed the digit. Chris stayed still for the inspection, acquiescing to Steven’s desire to memorize the features of the boy’s face, but as soon as Steven stepped into the widened space between the boy’s thighs, Chris’s arms were curving around his waist, pulling him in.   
Chris lifted his chin expectantly, and Steven couldn’t resist the invitation of those lips. His hands went to cradle the boy’s face while Chris’s arms and legs seemed to wrap around Steven’s nude body. He thought he’d never get enough of the way that Chris’s mouth opened to him but wasn’t submissive or passive. Chris was eager, encouraging Steven’s possession of his lips, pulling him in just like his limbs.

Chris’s eyes shone in the candlelight as Steven pulled back to catch his fleeting breath. Chris took the opportunity to move to lie on the bed, scooting over to the wall so that Steven could climb in next to him. Steven again, took a moment to simply stare at the curves and angles of Chris’s body fully unveiled. And Chris didn’t rush him, seemed to understand that Steven was not hesitating or having second thoughts. His eyes were intent on Steven’s face but he couldn’t seem to stay still, shifting almost imperceptibly with excitement and throwing one muscle after another into sharp relief.

Steven didn’t make him wait long and as soon as he was climbing onto the bed, Chris was reaching out a hand to him, turning on his side to get as close as possible as quickly as possible. It was incredibly gratifying that this boy wanted him, wanted to touch him, and he wasted no time pulling Chris’s smaller body into his arms.

But then Steven was pushing Chris onto his back again. He wanted to explore like he had never been able to before, and so he turned the boy’s face away with a firm hand to allow him access to nip along Chris’s sharp jawline and down to his neck. Steven licked and kissed along the sensitive hollows there, careful not to leave a mark, as his hand traveled down to trace the indentations of muscle in Chris’s chest and belly.

He could feel how Chris’s chest was heaving, muscles twitching, and he could hear Chris making these seemingly irrepressible sounds, low and distressed sounding moans. Chris’s hands made aborted movements over Steven’s skin, trying to explore Steven’s body only to clench when Steven hit a particularly sensitive spot.

Moving his lips down to the hollow of Chris’s throat, Steven skimmed the edge of his teeth over Chris’s collarbone before his lips closed over the tight bud of a nipple. And Chris let out this high-pitched keening sound, like a wild animal, like a mating call, desperate and lonesome and yearning. Steven jerked his head back in shock, shocked more as Chris yanked him up by his biceps, taking his lips with the same desperation the sound had had.

Even as he gave himself over to the kiss though, Steven’s hands kept roaming, passing again over the boy’s now wet nipple. He felt more than heard Chris make that sound again into his mouth. It was unlike anything that Steven had experienced, unlike those hurried, quiet encounters that he had heretofore participated in. He wanted to provoke that sound again and again. He wanted to know what other sounds Chris could make.

Chris was wanton and uninhibited, his body inviting Steven with fluid writhing movements, his hands demanding on Steven’s back. He didn’t overanalyze or over-think but was animalistic, feral. Steven kept Chris’s mouth as his hand wandered down over a downy thigh. He couldn’t shut off his own brain that said they had to be quiet, but he wouldn’t tell Chris to subdue his responses.

So he swallowed the sound as his hand finally grasped Chris’s cock. They weren’t even kissing as he slowly stroked, the movement more for himself than Chris, simply allowing him to feel the softness, the slickness, the length and width and weight of it in his hand. Their lips simply slid wetly against one another, mouths open as they both panted.

But then Steven was pushing Chris’s far leg away, unsurprised as Chris then let his legs fall wide in unwitting entreaty. “Do you know what sex is between men?” he asked, the words soft and low and whispered into the boy’s mouth.

He pulled back enough to see the answer in the boy’s face, to see the darkness of Chris’s eyes when the blue was covered by black pupil, the shine of sweat and spit around swollen lips. Steven didn’t wait for the boy to answer as Chris seemed past the ability to do so.

Instead he slid his hand in between those spread thighs, finger trailing in between round cheeks to rub meaningfully on the dark furl on muscle hidden there. The sound Chris made then was softer, somehow satisfied and indulgent and expectant as if he had been waiting for Steven to get there all night.

Encouraged by Chris’s response, Steven placed a kiss on the boy’s temple before twisting to reach a jar on his bedside table. He hadn’t had much need for the salve lately except to personally take care of his own needs.

Chris wasn’t content to wait patiently for whatever Steven was getting, and, instead, Steven felt a curious hand running down his belly, farther to his…

He sucked in a quick breath as Chris’s hand firmly grasped his erection, stroking not to familiarize but to excite, pulling and twisting. He turned back, jar in one hand just as Chris was pulling his hand away with a meaningful stroke over the leaking head.

Steven choked on his breath in shock and awe that Chris was so forward, so comfortable with Steven and with his own sexuality. Chris was not the stiff inexperienced youths that Steven had been with before, was not the rough insensitive men either. Chris was playful and inquisitive, and, yet, Steven was shocked again to watch the youth lick a stripe of Steven’s cum from his palm.

The display had Steven’s hand curling firm around Chris’s neck as he pulled the boy in for a breath stealing kiss. Steven wanted to know his own taste on Chris’s tongue; he wanted to feel this brash and bold youth yield to him again. But it didn’t last long before Steven was pulling his lips just slightly away as he looked down at Chris’s legs that the boy opened as he watched. Steven could feel Chris’s breath against his lips as he reached down to pull Chris’s far leg up so the boy’s foot was on the bed.

Chris’s nearest arm was slung around Steven’s neck as Steven opened the jar, smearing the substance on two of his fingers. Chris even tilted his hips forward, granting Steven even better access to his most intimate place. He could feel the boy’s eyes on his face just as he could feel the boy’s breath, and though his finger circled the muscle a few times, smearing the salve, Steven made sure to be looking at Chris’s face when the digit finally breached the boy’s body.

It was a small intrusion, only the tip of Steven’s finger but he was watching the boy carefully. Chris barely made a sound, the only noticeable change being the distance in his dark eyes as Chris focused on the new sensation.

As Steven pressed the digit in deeper, Chris let out another low satisfied sound, and his hips began to move faintly along with Steven’s hand as he withdrew and pushed back in. Chris’s body moved in a parody of the sexual act, a supplication that Steven felt awed to witness and honored to satisfy. Even at two fingers, Chris did nothing but arch his back, baring his vulnerable throat and making Steven chase Chris’s guttural groan with his lips.

Soon enough the boy felt loose enough around his fingers, and Chris had regained enough of his wits to be nipping again at Steven’s lips. Steven seemed to be the only one who was tentative. Above all he wanted Chris to remember this with fondness, no matter what happened come morning.

Removing those fingers had Chris whimpering, soft and pained, but he settled quickly under Steven’s soothing hand. With a deep breath, Steven took some more of the salve before setting it aside. Chris’s hand was there to help spread the slick on his cock and the extra stimulation had Steven hissing, a sound that Chris took as his turn to kiss away.   
And then Steven was rolling Chris to his back again, situating himself over the boy’s smaller body. Chris was quick to wrap his arms and legs loose around Steven, comforting and taking comfort. Hovering over the boy, Steven could see now that there was some anxiety in the boy’s eyes but it was overlaid by trust. Chris trusted him in a way that was both frightening and empowering to Steven.

Steven closed his eyes at the sight, and for a moment, simply drew his own comfort from the feel of their bodies pressed close, the heat of Chris’s skin against his own. Opening his eyes, he split his attention between Chris’s face and positioning his cock at Chris’s entrance. The pressure of Chris’s hands on his back increased as Steven began to press in, the boy’s eyes going wide with pain.

Chris let out little hurt noises but the grip of his limbs around Steven never eased. Steven had to bite his own lip, forcing himself to go slow and steady as the pleasure of the heat and friction and tightness increased around his cock. It felt like his entire world had narrowed to that sensation until he had himself buried to the hilt.

He lay still, panting for a moment against Chris’s cheek until he recovered himself to comfort the youth. And Chris seemed grateful for the comfort as Steven placed wet kisses on his face, easing his fingers’ grip on Steven’s shoulders. Steven just wanted to wipe the look of pain from Chris’s features, hating that look there when pleasure looked so beautiful on the boy.

After a moment, though Chris was turning his face to tentatively return the kisses, rocking his hips experimentally with accompanying gasps. Steven moved slowly too, flexing his ass in little pumps that had the tone of Chris’s sounds changing from plaintive to abandoned.

He just had enough presence of mind to keep his lips somewhat over Chris’s as the boy’s cries became louder, seemingly pushed out by each thrust that was harder and deeper than the last. He felt surrounded by Chris, with Chris’s arms around his neck, legs around his waist, clenching hole around his cock, lips trying to stay connected, Chris was all that Steven could feel, see, smell, and hear.

Steven had Chris bent nearly in half so that he could keep their lips in contact but Steven found the position difficult. He had never before attempted to be as close to his partner physically as this and still he craved more. Reaching his hands underneath the boy’s back, Steven found it easy to lift the boy while sitting back on his own heels.

But he found himself rushing to get a hand behind Chris’s head as the boy’s body arched, head falling back on a loud cry at the change in position. Bringing Chris’s lips back to his own, Steven wrapped one forearm around slim hips as Chris was bringing up a hand to brush Steven’s hair back from his face.

Steven’s lips parted on a soft gasp at the thoughtfulness, the caring in the gesture even at such a time, but Chris was already using his hands to grip Steven’s shoulders, attempting to raise himself off Steven’s cock only to sink back down. Steven found himself belatedly struggling to help while still trying to keep their lips together. Despite his initial intentions, Steven found that the wet slide of their lips was unexpectedly erotic, intimate to keep that connection, their lips, their breath…

They found a rhythm quicker than Steven would have expected and he found his own hand entangled in dark hair, firm on the back of Chris’s neck but also holding the hair back from the boy’s face. His other hand ended up still mostly wrapped around the boy’s hips but holding onto one round buttock as he helped to lift the boy and pull him down, faster and harder.

This position allowed him to easily feel Chris’s chest sliding slickly against his own, Chris’s cock hard and leaking against his belly. Perhaps it was not as easy for Chris since Steven could feel the muscles of Chris’s thighs bunching thickly with strain as the boy lifted himself over and over again. The sounds Chris made reverberated through both of their chests, as if they didn’t really need them to be audible to communicate.

When one of Chris’s hands slid from Steven’s neck, he was at first apprehensive that something was wrong but then he felt the hand slipping between their bellies, felt the new urgency in the sounds that Chris was making as the boy’s hand grasped his own cock.

That urgency was soon in both their movements as Chris strived towards his release. Steven felt a previously unknown sense of pride and satisfaction when he felt the boy’s muscles stiffen in his arms, felt the hot wetness spilling between them. He knew that the howl that Chris let loose had not been fully covered by his lips.

But Steven didn’t worry about it as Chris became sated and pliant in his arms, as Chris finally pulled his face away from Steven’s to pant into the open air and then lay his head on Steven’s shoulder. And Steven was just as turned on by Chris’s loose-limbed satiety. He brushed the boy’s hair back from his shoulder before running his hand down the boy’s sweat-soaked back to join his other hand at continuing their earlier rhythm.

Both his hands on Chris’s muscular cheeks, Steven lifted the boy, Chris struggling to help even as his mouth moved lazily over the tendon straining in Steven’s neck. And suddenly everything was too much and Steven was right there, and even though Steven had, of course, never been one to talk during sex, he couldn’t help saying his nickname for the boy over and over again. “Chris,” he said, that secret word that represented his bond to this boy, this Indian that allowed Steven to name him. “Chris, Chris, Chris…”

Chris was obliged then to lift his head, swallowing the repetition of his name, crying out sharply himself again as Steven pressed the boy down deeper in his lap as he pumped his seed inside Chris’s body. And endless amount of time later, Steven wanted to just fall over but instead attempted to carefully lay the boy back down on the bed, Chris whimpering first at the change in position and then as Steven withdrew his softening cock.

Chris was like a broken doll on the bed as he lay there with arms and legs akimbo. Steven was about to get up to get a washcloth before Chris was raising a hand to him again, that mischievous glint to his eyes back despite his exhaustion. And just like always, Steven accepted that hand and let the boy pull him down into the bed.

He and the boy tangled together much like they had that first night, but this time, Steven purposefully squeezed the boy tight and laid an affectionate kiss on a damp forehead.

When he awoke in the morning, Steven was inclined to believe that it had all been a wonderful dream, but he couldn’t deny that he had been right, lying skin to skin with Chris like this was much better than clothed. Particularly as his own waking caused the boy to move sleepily against him.

Chris moaned sleepily as his morning erection rubbed against Steven’s bare thigh, but Steven felt an incongruous urge to giggle. This was insane, to have woken with this beautiful boy against him still, warm and sleepy and trusting, to be contemplating satisfying their sexual urges again despite that the whole settlement was probably now awake.

Steven rolled to his side, rolling the boy to his back and causing Chris to grumble half-heartedly as he opened his eyes to slits. Despite Chris’s drowsy behavior his hands lifted easily enough to run over Steven’s chest. Steven smiled then before leaning down to nuzzle at the boy’s jaw causing Chris to make a contented rumbling noise deep in his chest. Never before had Steven experienced this easy companionship after a sexual encounter, never had there been continued affection after both partners had achieved release.

It was impossible and crazy but it didn’t stop Steven from enjoying it or hoping that it continued. It didn’t stop him from contemplating trailing his lips along the boy’s skin, lower to his cock even knowing the volume of the sounds that Chris would make.

It couldn’t stop Steven’s heart from seeming to expand past the bounds of his chest every time that Chris responded to his touch, every time that Chris reached out to him, every time Chris looked at him with love and affection in his cool blue eyes and a smirk on those full lips.

But he knew that despite everything that he felt or wanted, he needed to get up and get them clean and dressed. He couldn’t chance the possibility of them being caught by the next person walking into Steven’s home. Chris’s hands slid along his back as Steven got off the bed, reluctant to leave Steven’s skin it seemed. Steven felt like he was always the one ruining everything, the paranoid one always looking around the corner.

At the washbowl, he rinsed a cloth and cleaned the dried release from his chest and belly, his deflating cock and inner thighs. He took a deep, calming breath as he rinsed the cloth again before turning back to Chris still sprawled across the mattress. The boy’s eyes were hooded, shadowed, and Steven knew it was Chris picking up on Steven’s own conflicted emotions, the conflict between what Steven wanted and what he could have, the fairy tale that Steven could see in front of him and the fact that Steven knew it was still out of reach.

Chris reached out to him, curling a hand around the back of Steven’s neck even as Steven concentrated on cleaning the boy’s belly and still hard cock. Gamely, Chris let Steven push his knees back to his chest to clean his hole, but the boy whimpered piteously as Steven gently wiped at the still red and swollen muscle. Despite Steven’s cynical thoughts he couldn’t help find the sight and the boy’s compliance erotic. Already Steven was entertaining thoughts of later that night, perhaps he would be the one to ride Chris’s cock then.

Steven couldn’t resist laying a soothing kiss on the inside of the boy’s thigh before standing to get dressed. He could feel Chris’s eyes on him, wanting him to come back to bed, but Steven held his own emotions in check with the ease of long practice, pulling on his britches and shirt, tied his hair back in a ponytail. He figured that he would go ahead and get them fresh water since they no longer had guards to do it instead.

The demanding pounding on the door wasn’t even surprising when it came, though Steven took the time to look back at Chris tying on his loincloth while still sitting on the bed. As soon as he was answering the door though, Steven was being pushed aside by David and several others of his neighbors.

When Steven had been anticipating an interruption, he had not imagined this commotion. But he watched with resignation. He knew that no matter the reason, there was nothing he could do about it, and so he stood beside the door as David stepped up to Chris still sitting, startled and yet defiant.

David paused there and Steven knew what he saw, knew that though Chris was always near to naked, the rumpled sheets and the smell of sex painted an all too vivid picture. Steven didn’t know what to expect of David or any of the men who had suddenly invaded his home, but David simply turned to look at him, smirking knowingly. Then David was grabbing Chris’s wrist, surprising the boy as Chris stumbled off-balance out of bed.

Chris never got the time to recover as David kept pulling at him and the other men closed ranks around them. Steven was, in fact, surprised that David stalled long enough to look him in the face and tell him with gloating eyes, “An agreement has been reached. We’re sending him back where he came from.”

Steven never recovered from that, and the fact that Chris began struggling in earnest then didn’t soothe that ache. He simply stood there as they dragged the boy away from him. He stood there convincing himself that it was for the best, that Chris needed to go back to his people, to his own life, that they had gotten too close anyway. He tried to remember that it wasn’t like when Chris had been dragged into his house, Chris was being released. They should both have been happy.

In an instant Steven’s life had changed when Chris had been thrust suddenly into his home, and, in an equally short time, Steven’s life had gone back to the way that it had always been. Except it didn’t feel the same. It didn’t feel the same as Steven went back into his home and shut the door, shutting out the world as he often did. It didn’t feel the same as he looked around his home, as he looked at the bookshelf, at his desk, at the fireplace, at his bed. It felt empty.

Steven’s home and his life felt lonely in a way that Steven hadn’t been aware of before. And it made Steven angry, at first. Chris had been forced into his life, against his will, and had introduced Steven to things, had teased Steven with things that Steven was never going to have. What point had there been in learning to comfort Chris now that Chris was gone? There was no one else to comfort. What good had there been in learning what it was like to fall asleep in a lover’s arms, to wake up in those same arms, to learn that there was more to sex than release and that the aftermath didn’t have to be cold and awkward?

But as a day passed, a day since Chris had been in his home, taking up his space and turning his world on its ear, the anger passed too. And instead there was this sucking hole in his chest, this despair at what he had lost. His heart that had seemed too big before seemed to have disappeared from his chest cavity, leaving him as empty as his house. He thought of the future, the future without Chris, as an endlessly dark journey. It seemed like a light had been extinguished, leaving Steven floundering in the dark.

It had felt too good, too good to touch someone, to reach out, to accept a hand, to accept comfort and touch. Steven had felt free, had felt empowered. He had taken a chance, had defied David Boreanaz and his troop of brainless followers. To give that up felt impossible to recover from.

As days turned into a week, Steven became preoccupied with thinking about Chris, with replaying every moment of their time together. He thought about the boy’s smile, his smirk, his mischief, his innocence. He thought of Chris on the floor with blood on his face, at Steven’s bookshelf, at the river, sprawled on Steven’s bed. It seemed Steven’s every thought was consumed with the young Indian boy, torturing him with thoughts of what he had lost.

Steven thought of their last moments together and remembered how he had left Chris in the bed. He had been the one to be awkward and silent, cold. Too preoccupied with what others would think, he had repeated the pattern that all his sexual encounters had. He thought now that he should have stayed in bed, held onto the boy with all his strength.   
Steven was too afraid and ashamed to leave his house much in that week, to face his neighbors who probably knew now about his sins, his aberration. He was too afraid to face David’s smirking face. And Steven was so tired of being lonely and afraid.

Steven was only vaguely aware of a raid on a Cherokee scouting party. Apparently the agreement had not been satisfactorily carried out.

At first when Steven heard the commotion, he continued to lie in the bed that he had spent most of the past week in. At the sound of gunfire though, Steven was up and out of bed, rushing to the door.

Outside that door it seemed to be complete chaos. Women and children were running one direction while men ran in the other, finding and loading their guns. Steven could see the Cherokee scaling the walls, rushing in, holding some of the weapons that David had accused them of not returning as agreed.

When he heard the sound of gunfire again, it seemed to be far away. Turning his head, Steven saw the world as if through leaded glass, saw an Indian fall in a spray of red blood from the bullet, saw a settler, James, fall to his knees, hands scrabbling at the arrow imbedded in his back. Steven had never seen violence like that, had never participated in any of the conflicts with the Cherokee.

But he wasn’t watching for long as a sharp pain exploded in the back of his head, turning his vision white before it darkened.

Pain was the first thing that he experienced upon waking as well and his first moments of consciousness were spent just concentrating on breathing. It was only when he attempted to bury his face into his mattress that he realized his cheek was laying on dirt and fallen leaves. That realization was like a splash of cold water and Steven attempted to use his hands only to discover that they were tied behind him.

But no one seemed to be taking notice or offense at his movements, so slowly, Steven got his knees underneath him, rolling to put his weight on one shoulder and then pushed up to kneel. Even as he was wiping the dirt off his cheek with his shoulder, he could see the chaos that surrounded him, the shattered remnants of their settlement, of the world that Steven had clung to.

They weren’t in the settlement any longer, but in the Cherokee camp. He saw their women and children, terrified and traumatized but physically fine and being tended to by the Cherokee women who plied their captives with water. Steven turned his head further and he saw other men liked himself, also on their knees with their hands tied behind him.

The man on the end had been one of the ‘guards’ that had watched over Chris and himself. Steven struggled to remember the man’s name for he had no children. Blake or Brian perhaps, the man looked defiant as two Indian braves seemed to be questioning him in harsh whispers that Steven couldn’t hear. Steven wished that he had that defiance at a moment like this. If these were to be his final moments, he wished that it would be for a reason that he understood, a cause that he believed in, something worth dying for.

His thoughts turned to Chris, predictably. The boy had certainly been worth living for. Steven thought it telling that the boy occupied what might be his last thoughts. He only wished that he had had such clarity before the current moment.

Sudden yelling had Steven’s attention turning back to the man at the end, just in time to see a spear pierce the settler’s throat. Blood ran thick like a river down the man’s throat, glinting startlingly red in the sun filtering through the trees.

He watched as the man collapsed, his face falling forward over his knees for a moment until the weight of his body had him falling backward, toppling back and to the side, his body looking suddenly thick and heavy, like a sack of rocks.   
Bile rose in Steven’s throat, choking him, and he doubled forward, panting for a moment through his nose. Until suddenly his head was being jerked back by his ponytail, loose strands falling free in the front and sticking to his sweaty face.

Positive that he was about to meet the same fate, Steven at first thought that it was only his imagination that had him suddenly seeing Chris, the boy moving through the crowd of Indians. Until he heard the boy call out, “Steve!” and saw everyone reacting to the sound.

Then the boy was breaking through, falling to his knees practically on top of Steven who could feel the boy’s calves on the outside of his own. Frantic yet gentle hands were then pushing the hair off of his face before winding themselves around Steven’s neck.

Tears pricked at Steven’s eyes, preventing him from being able to focus on Chris’s face. Just seeing the boy again was an unexpected gift, but the fact that Chris still cared, that Chris was obviously distraught, that the boy did love him…

Steven’s next thoughts were for the boy’s safety, though. Who knew what punishment there would be for the boy for interfering in an execution. He tried to lean back away from Chris, trying to get the boy to pay attention to him, “Chris, you can’t…”

Neither of them got to say anything more as there was shouting around them and then Steven saw a spear enter the space between them, moving towards his neck. The spear had moved slowly, threateningly, but Chris’s hand moved fast, grabbing the razor sharp head with his bare hand.

Steven’s head was tilted slightly away, but even though he couldn’t see, he could feel hot sticky blood running down his throat, not his blood though. He choked again, his words and emotions becoming stuck in his throat when he heard, “Cheasequah!”

The voice spoke of authority and the crowd quieted all around them. Chris had twisted around to look at the speaker though he didn’t loosen his grip on the spearhead or his grip on Steven’s neck. Chris answered the call, his voice wrecked, strung out with emotion, speaking a language Steven didn’t understand.

The pleading in his voice was hard to mistake though. Steven blinked and then took a long look, what might be his last look at the boy. Chris’s long lashes were clumped with tears now that sparkled in the crystal blue of his eyes, his cheeks were ruddy with emotion as were his lips, plump with blood and parted as he seemed to wait for an answer. Steven knew that he would never be able to say no to that face, to this Indian boy, to Chris who had taught him more in a week than Steven had learned his entire life from books. Chris who taught him that love existed even for him.

When the answer came, Steven still had no idea what it was, but he saw Chris deflate with a shattered sob, sagging visibly as he let go of the spearhead and wrapped both arms around Steven’s neck. Chris buried his face in the un-bloodied side of Steven’s throat.

Steven spared a look at what he assumed to be Chris’s grandfather, chieftain of this Cherokee tribe. He couldn’t imagine what emotion was in his own face, shock, relief, disbelief, love. But the other man’s face was clearly evaluating Steven and Steven’s interactions with Chris.

But Steven was done trying to live up to other people’s expectations of him. And then suddenly his hands were free. It took a moment for Steven to catalogue the change but then his own arms were sliding around Chris, one around the boy’s hips and the other clutching the back of the boy’s head. Steven pulled Chris close as the boy shattered and trembled and they both recovered from the frightful experience.

Remembering Chris’s hand, Steven pulled the boy back a little by his hair, letting go of the boy long enough to strip off his shirt. Then with some difficulty, he was unwinding the boy’s right hand from his neck to wrap. Steven cradled the wrapped hand against his now bare chest, putting pressure on the wound with a hand even as his other was sliding back around Chris, pulling the boy in and almost breathing a sigh of contentment to again feel Chris’s skin against his own.

Steven leaned his cheek against Chris’s unstubbled one, and since his lips were right next to the boy’s ear, he couldn’t help whispering the name again like he had that night, “Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris…”  
And just like that night, Chris stopped the stream of words with his plush lips.   
\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Steven stayed in the Cherokee encampment as did many of the women and children and all were treated well. He experienced many of the things of which Chris had spoken, had felt the gentle touch of Chris’s mother’s hands upon his cheeks, had listened to Chris’s grandfather tell stories around a crackling fire, sprawled on the ground with Chris against him. Steven even ran and laughed with Chris’s friends through the forest.

They didn’t stay forever though. They decided to move westward, away from the ever-expanding white presence. They hoped to find new horizons, to settle in a place that wasn’t English and wasn’t Cherokee but was them, together.


End file.
